U.K. election: Exit polls show David Cameron’s Conservatives in lead

LONDON – The Conservative Party appears poised to win the U.K. election, with exit polls showing it wildly outperforming expectations and within reach of a possible majority.

Projected by The Guardian to win 273 seats, and by FiveThirtyEight to win 281, the incumbent Conservatives are positioned in exit polls to win 316 seats — just nine short of the 325 they need for an absolute majority. They have spent the last five years in government with help from the Liberal Democrats; exit polls predict the Lib Dems will win just 10 seats, down from 56.

Failing to secure a majority, the Conservatives could choose to form government with help from a pair of right-wing parties — the U.K. Independence Party (UKIP) and the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) — which combined have a projected seat count sufficient to give the Conservatives the nine coalition members they need for a majority.

At present, the exit polls bode poorly for Labour, which was expected to compete with the Conservatives in the race to assemble a coalition after the election. Instead, its projected 239 seats leave it well short of being able to form the next government — even with help from the Scottish National Party (SNP), which is expected to carry 58 of Scotland’s 59 seats.